Deva Victrix: The Engagement
by moonlighten
Summary: Alasdair and Francis are engaged, and very little has changed. (Scotland/France. One-shot; complete. Human AU; fantasy setting.) Sequel to Deva Victrix and Deva Victrix: The Courtship.


Francis squints at the document, trying to resolve some meaning out of the cramped scrawl of ink huddled at the topmost edge of the page.

His efforts are rewarded with nothing more than the sort of dull, pulsing headache he knows will slowly but inexorably lead to nausea and blurred vision later, and the elucidation of two words: 'amethyst' and 'pantaloons'.

He puzzles over their meaning as he drinks a restorative half-glass of wine. They seem to have no connection to the investigation his agent had been tasked with, and he can only presume that she had been wary of the courier he sent to her and thus took it upon herself to write her report in code.

Whilst he admires both her ingenuity and her caution, he cannot be pleased by it as she had not also had the forethought to provide him with the means to decipher her message. Though that, he supposes, is more his own fault than hers. The type of sensitive intelligence he now deals with should probably never be rendered in Trade, and in retrospect, the necessity of a cipher his agents could use in their correspondence with him is plain.

His previous dalliance with clandestine operations should have taught him that he does not have an eye for the finer details of such things, and the organisation of a spy network would likely have benefited from being assigned to a far more methodical mind than his own from the start.

Aly has an honest man's distaste for the entire concept, however, and could not and cannot be persuaded to take more than a cursory interest in the undertaking. Francis has thus been left to muddle along as best he can alone as there's no-one else he trusts enough to aid him in it.

He groans, sets his empty glass aside, and makes himself a note that he should ask for a sample of handwriting from his each of his prospective agents in the future to ensure its legibility before he recruits them, and another that he needs to employ the services of a cryptographer.

Aide-mémoire complete, he picks up the next report from the intimidatingly large pile of them on his desk. It's far longer than the first, and ripe with potentially interesting nuggets of information, and Francis quickly becomes so absorbed in it that he doesn't register Aly's presence in the room until he leans in over his shoulder and begins reading it along with him.

"You're going to have to send one of your people to Cataractonium if even half of this is true," he observes before rounding the desk and slumping down heavily into the seat on the other side of it.

Francis sinks his teeth into his bottom lip to trap the unkind words that want to fly from his mouth in response. His annoyance is reflexive but beneath him, and Aly doesn't deserve to be taken to task simply because his thoughts and his tongue so often work faster than Francis' own, even if that tendency does leave Francis both looking and feeling like something of a simpleton at times.

No doubt he would have come to the same conclusion eventually, anyhow, and he should just be grateful that he's been spared a moment or two of his ever more valuable time.

He doesn't _feel_ grateful though, and his next note is dashed off with such an abrupt and heavy hand that his pen nib splits under the pressure and splatters ink across his small notebook, obscuring everything that he has written thus far today.

"_Merde_," he says, slamming his free hand down against the desktop, and then, "_Va te faire enculer_," as he hurls the now-useless pen as hard as he can across the room.

The violence of the action drains a little of his anger, but it returns to him twofold when he catches sight of Aly's grin.

"What's so funny?" he snarls.

"I've just never heard you swear like that before. I didn't think you had it in you," Aly says, sounding a little impressed. "Bad morning?"

"It would have been better if you'd been here to help me sort through all of this... All of this crap like you were supposed to be," Francis says, realising only as he speaks the accusation that his irritation has been building for far longer than he'd been aware of it. "Where in the hells have you been?"

Aly's boots – not the pair Francis had bought for him to wear on official business, but the ones he used to patrol in, with their scuffed toes and thinning soles – are smeared in mud, which suggests a visit to the stables, as do the wisps of hay caught in his unruly thatch of hair. The dust coating the cuffs of his jacket betrays a sojourn to the library; the wind-kissed flush of his cheeks a stroll around the gardens.

All places Francis would rather have passed his time than here in this stuffy little office, giving himself eyestrain as he pored over incomprehensible reports. He grinds his teeth down so hard that he fancies he can hear them begin to creak under the strain.

"I was catching up with Dyl." Aly shrugs nonchalantly. "Thought I'd best give him a proper tour if he's going to be staying here for a while. Wouldn't want him to get lost and," distaste drips from the words like venom, "run into unsavoury types, would we?"

"I'd planned on doing that myself," Francis says, his voice little more than a thin whisper as he cannot seem to force enough air past his set jaw for any louder. "_After_ my work was done. We don't all have the luxury of being able to swan—"

"What the fuck, Francis?" Aly growls, his knuckles blanching as he clenches his hands tight around the arms of his chair. "You _promised_ me I could have a couple of hours alone with him when he got here. You don't give me a minute to myself from sunup to sundown any other day, so don't you fucking dare begrudge me that now. I haven't had chance to speak more than a word or two at a time with him for _weeks_."

"I thought you'd have more sense than to take me up on that offer today, though," Francis hisses. "Your brother hasn't seen much more of his _husband_ in that time, either."

"Aye, I know." Aly grimaces slightly. "And I've seen firsthand how you've set about trying to remedy _that_. The room you've given them looks like a fucking bordello. Suggestive paintings on the wall; bed the size of one of your sodding tennis courts.

"Apparently, we're all equally essential to this scheme of yours, but _I'm_ not allowed to take a even a moment to talk to my brother. And yet you're encouraging _them_ to spend an entire week..."

Aly gulps down his next word, and judging by the aggrieved scrunch of his eyebrows, he doesn't much care for its taste.

"Fucking," Francis finishes for him. The surge of pleasure that swells in his chest at the deepening of Aly's scowl is as distinct as it is perplexing. "And people on their honeymoon don't generally need much in the way of encouragement. _Normal_ people don't need –"

He bites down hard on his bottom lip once more, but far too late to do him any good.

The word he has never been cruel or thoughtless enough to voice before hangs in the air above their heads, as brutal and heavy as a guillotine blade. Aly seems to buckle under its weight; his shoulders rounding protectively as his back sags.

"Okay," he says, his gaze falling to his lap. "Is _that_ what all this is about?"

"No," Francis says, but then almost immediately afterward, because his gut churns at the unintended deception, he adds, "It might have something to do with it."

He might not have been aware of his patience with Aly thinning until it finally snapped, but the signs are so very clear in hindsight. To be so close to him each and every day but not able to bestow any touch on him beyond those Aly's already comfortable with – almost platonic embraces and odd kiss chaste enough to press to the cheek of a maiden aunt – is an unrelenting torment. One which Francis has been able to ignore for the most part by throwing himself headlong into the unremitting whirl of court life and his more illicit activities, but it had clearly been buried in more fertile ground than he ever suspected, and has been spreading its roots and growing unbeknownst to his conscious mind all the while.

"I gave you a year, just as I said I would," he says, gentling his tone with some effort. "And I've given you these three months more because I thought you just needed a little longer to reconcile yourself to the idea that our relationship would change. But nothing _has_ changed, has it. We're still exactly where we were when our courtship ended. You said you were sure then, Aly. I never would have agreed to get engaged, otherwise."

"I said I was _more_ sure, Francis," Aly murmurs. "I never said I was _certain_. I never lied to you – don't put that on me – and you were happy enough with that at the time."

Foolishly hopeful would be closer to describing Francis' emotions then; a state of mind which has been the one constant throughout his acquaintance with Aly. He has never wanted anything so urgently in his life before than marriage to this man, so he had persuaded himself that Aly's vague reassurances were much more auspicious than they were in actuality.

"And what do you think could make you certain?" he asks. A question he has long avoided because he's always been too scared that the answer might be 'nothing' to chance it. Now the topic is out in the open at last, instead of being carefully tiptoed around by the both of them, it seems like a watershed moment; one that should be seized before Francis' own anger-born certainty seeps away from him once more.

Aly lets out a sharp bark of humourless laughter. "Trying to bed you, I guess," he says, "but I don't..."

"You don't, what?" Francis prompts when he trails into silence. "You don't want to do that?"

It had seemed like the most obvious explanation, but Francis' heart still chills at Aly's nod, and the throbbing at his temples intensifies.

He rubs at them with his knuckles as he asks, somewhat desperately, "Does the thought of it disgust you? Scare you?"

Aly nods again at the second suggestion. "I am scared, but probably not in the way you're thinking. I just..." He swallows hard. "What if it turns out I can't... perform like I should, Francis? Or that I really can't grow to enjoy that sort of thing, after all? Well, that'll be it for good, won't it? Game over. We'll have to break the engagement, and then what will we be to one another?"

"We'll be friends, as we were before," Francis says, forcing himself to smile even though the prospect horrifies him fully as much as it – unbelievably – looks to horrify Aly. "And you'll be my most trusted advisor, just as you are now."

"Your advisor," Aly echoes dully. "Look, I know I'm being fucking selfish, but I... I like how things are between us now. Aye, we could probably still spend all our free time together if we were simply friends, but how long will that last? I'm not kidding myself here, I know you'll probably find yourself someone to take my place a few months down the line, and they're not likely to take kindly to that, are they? Besides," his lips take on a rueful twist, "I'm not sure _I_ would take kindly to seeing you... get close to that someone, either."

"So I take it you wouldn't consider inviting a third to join us if we were to marry, regardless," Francis says.

He has idly considered that solution himself a time or two, though he had dismissed the possibility solely due to the strength of his own feelings for Aly, judging that it would be unfair for that hypothetical person to have to try and content themselves with what little scraps of spare attention and affection might remain beyond them. That Aly might feel slighted by such an arrangement had never once occurred to him, given how things stand.

"All jealousy and no intimacy; great basis for a relationship, right?" Aly snorts. "I can't even explain it myself, but there it is."

"Forget I ever suggested it, then," Francis says. "But we have to do _something_ about this. I told you before that no matter how... how much I care for you, I don't want to give up that part of myself forever. I _can't_ give it up."

"I know."

"And you know that I'm willing and able to take things as slowly as you need them to be. I've never pushed you for anything you weren't comfortable with, have I?"

Aly shakes his head. "Maybe it would have been better for us if you had, though," he says quietly. "Perhaps then we wouldn't be in this mess now."

"I suspect we'd have found ourselves in an even bigger one," Francis says. "And I wouldn't call it a mess, precisely. I'd sooner call it a stalemate, instead."

Aly contemplates this in silence for a moment, and then offers Francis a soft smile. "Then it's probably about time that we give up on this game and start another. You know I haven't got the faintest clue about how any of them are played, so it's going to have to be down to you."

Francis blinks at him, puzzled. "I'm afraid you lost me somewhere around the middle of that metaphor."

"I'm saying you were right," Aly says. "We obviously can't carry on like we have been, and if I do lose you... Well, I know I'd bear it better if I'd done everything I could to try and keep you, first. I'm going to have to be brave, so... What do you suggest?"

Francis doesn't even need a instant to contemplate it, never mind a moment. The answer was on the tip of his tongue all along. "I want you to share my bed tonight."

"Okay," Aly says. drawing the word out slowly, his eyes narrowed down to suspicious slits. "And then...?"

"And then nothing, unless you wish otherwise. I just want to sleep with my fiancé beside me for once. No more, no less."

"That sounds fine." Aly's expression brightens, and then he amends his assessment to, "Grand."

"Really? Are you sure?"

"Aye," Aly says decisively. "I've shared a bed most of my life and it's not exactly —"

Francis can't tell whether it's relief or anticipation causing the lightness in his head or the effervescent feeling coursing through his veins, but it eventually bubbles up in his chest with such force that he can't help but let it spill out in laughter.

"Oh, _mon coeur_," he says delightedly when Aly looks at him askance for his outburst, "surely it hasn't been so long since you spent the night in my chambers that you've forgotten that I always sleep naked?"  
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* * *

-  
At the beginning of their courtship, Alasdair had fully intended that he would continue to live at the apothecary with his brothers and work as a guard until marriage and its attendant expectations and conventions inevitably forced his relocation to the palace.

He had, however, reckoned without Francis. Or, more accurately, the unrelenting demands of Francis' position.

It had all started innocuously enough: Francis would ask Alasdair to stay on for an hour or so after they'd dined together to share his thoughts on a report that was too confidential in nature to share with anyone else, or give up a fraction of his free days so that he could try to teach him some skill or other that was, apparently, essential for a man who might one day be married to a prince, such as horsemanship or, somewhat inexplicably, needlepoint.

Alasdair did not begrudge him any of it – except perhaps the afternoon of embroidery, but as the spectre of that particular pastime has never again been raised, he suspects that Francis took careful note of his muffled curses throughout and the blood-soaked canvas that ensued and decided that it was a pursuit better left unpursued – because it seemed that Francis needed the time they spent together to have at least a veneer of productivity before he could justify taking so much as a moment to himself.

But the odd free day soon became damn near every one, and that hour gradually stretched to three or four; approaching midnight, and Alasdair would be so muzzy-headed from tiredness that he was glad to both humour Francis' concerns about imagined brigands and cutpurses lying in wait in the darkness along his route home, and accept his offer of a bed for the night in one of the palace's many guest chambers.

By the time they became engaged, he had practically moved into the palace anyway, and all that really changed when they exchanged their wooden rings for gold was that the rooms that he had been staying in practically every night were officially designated as his instead of simply being assumed as such by the palace staff, Francis, Alasdair's brothers, and damn near everyone of their acquaintance save Alasdair himself.

The change in their status clearly freed Francis from some invisible bonds of propriety or custom that Alasdair hadn't even been aware existed, because, the very next day, he arranged for the complete redecoration of those chambers.

The team he employed were swift but incredibly thorough, and when Alasdair retired to bed that night, the rooms had been altered beyond all recognition.

Gone was the narrow and slightly lumpen bed, replaced by a four poster swathed in flounces of diaphanous material and boasting a mattress only a smidgeon less deep than Francis' own. Paintings of dramatic Caledonian landscapes and martial ships under sail took the place of vapid portraits of weak-chinned minor nobles and their bug-eyed dogs, and the stern meined busts of Emperor's past were banished entirely.

Luxuriously upholstered armchairs and sofas, thick rugs, and rare editions of Alasdair's favourite books popped up like so many toadstools after a rain shower throughout the bedroom and its attached sitting room, and the once sparsely populated wardrobes in the small dressing room were stocked with sufficient shirts, jackets and breeches to clothe half of Old Town.

The result was not as opulent as the palace's public rooms, where Francis' penchant for the dramatic had been allowed free rein, nor as ostentatious as the newly minted 'honeymoon suite' that he had created to please Dylan and the Bard, but it was still fancy enough that Alasdair doesn't feel entirely comfortable actually _living_ in it, the way he did in his childhood home.

When he undresses at night, he conscientiously folds his clothes and piles them neatly atop his desk – a habit that his ma tried and failed to instil in him over the course of nineteen years – because leaving them crumpled on the floor as he used to seems an insult to the lush, intricately patterned carpet, and he scarcely dares to deviate from the path he's starting to wear in it between dressing room, bed, and door lest some trailing buckle, or hand, or boot scratches the mirrored lacquer of the ornate furniture he's been lumbered with.

The only part of his chambers where he can truly relax is the bathroom, because the enormous, claw footed bath Francis had had installed there is an enticing enough lure to overcome even his worries about irreparably scuffing the pure white tiles underfoot.

He fills the tub almost to the brim, and then sinks down into it until the steaming water rises up and over his head. In the warm, muffling darkness, he holds his breath until the ache in his chest becomes so acute that it forces him to resurface in a spluttering rush, eyes and nose and hair all streaming.

Normally, he would lie motionless for a while, to allow the water's heat to permeate down through his muscles and ease their ever-present tightness at the small of his back, but thanks to his prevaricating in the practice room – and library, stables, kitchen and even the privy – earlier in the evening, time is of the essence.

Despite the frequent claims to the contrary Francis makes to the more youthful of his noble acquaintances, if he has no pressing social engagements to keep him on his feet into the wee hours of the morning, he takes to his bed at no later than eleven o'clock nowadays, just like the elderly statesmen and women they so like to make fun of for bowing out of parties and balls before the night grows too long.

Between his dawn rising and the constant whir of motion and deliberation that is his working day, oftentimes he can barely keep himself from nodding off over his dinner plate.

Mindful of this fast-approaching deadline, Alasdair nonetheless wastes a handful of precious minutes contemplating the various bars of soap he has to hand. He knows that Francis likes the bergamot, but he still prefers the coal tar, despite Francis' protestations that it makes him smell like he's doused himself in lamp oil, because he feels far cleaner after using it.

They seem like messages just as much as scents, however – 'move closer' and 'stay away' respectively – and Alasdair finds that he doesn't really want to be telling Francis either of them.

He picks the lavender, scrubs himself quickly but carefully, head to toe, and then dresses even more urgently in his chilly bedroom. There seems little point in setting a fire.

This constant, obfuscating motion keeps his thoughts at bay until the very moment he's standing at the outer door to Francis' chambers. In the quiet pause he allows himself to straighten his shirt and fruitlessly attempt to smooth down his hair again before knocking, his doubts take their chance to creep back to the forefront of his mind again.

Although he's long past any worries he once had that Francis will try to touch him in a way he does not like, or hurry him into making decisions he does not yet care for, he finds this sudden change in Francis' expectations unnerving. Perhaps even more so because he knows in his heart that it is not sudden at all. That the three month unquestioned continuation of their bedroom status quo was always a demonstration of good faith and forbearance on Francis' part and not, as he'd secretly hoped, a tacit acceptance of it.

It's not any action of Francis' he dreads, but the possibility of his own lack of _reaction_.

As a child, he used to watch his ma and da and hope that he might someday find someone who made him as happy as they made each other and then marry them (a desire he refrained from sharing with Caitlin, who was vociferous in her opinion that marriage was unbearably stuffy and boring, and later Dylan, whose syrupy raptures on the subject of the institution he had no wish to encourage).

Adolescence brought with it the mortifying realisation that there was another side to marriage beyond laughing and living together, and adulthood, that his advancing years did nothing to make that aspect seem any sweeter, as his ma had reassured and promised him they would.

By the age of twenty-nine, he was left with nothing but the slim hope that he might someday meet another man or woman who shared his nature and inclinations, and the yet slimmer one that they would then find one another's company tolerable enough that sharing a house seemed appealing.

He'd known with bone-deep certainty that that was the way things would have to be, and yet he'd gone about it arse-backwards in the end, anyway. He found the man and they'd set up home, and all the while he'd managed to contrive a way to ignore the equally certain knowledge that it would take nothing more than a single touch – or lack of one, when the time came – to tear both of them away from him in an instant.

Still, no matter how foolish he'd may have been to enter into this engagement with the same fucking question that had hung over their courtship still unanswered, it couldn't be undone now, and the only path that remains open to him leads forwards.

He breathes deeply, and then knocks at the door.

"It's unlocked," Francis' voice answers almost immediately. "Come on in. I trust you remember the way."

It's been months since Alasdair last stepped foot in Francis' chambers, and the hallway seems to have shrunk considerably in the interim. The walk to the bedroom door is far shorter than he remembers.

The only light in the room beyond is provided by the oil lamps that sit on the low sets of drawers on either side of Francis' bed and the smouldering remains of a fire in the grate. It takes a moment for Alasdair's eyes to adjust to the darkness, and thence pick Francis' form out of the shadows.

He's not sprawled across his coverlet in decadent disarray, as Alasdair had half expected, half feared he would be, but sitting at his desk, straining his eyes yet again by trying to read some letter or other that could doubtless be safely left alone until morning.

There is a decanter of what appears to be brandy at his elbow, along with a half-full glass. Alasdair finds the sight a little troubling, as Francis wouldn't normally drink anything stronger than watered-down wine this late at night. He wonders if it might be medicinal.

"It's past eleven," Francis says without looking up from the document. "I was beginning to think you'd decided against joining me."

"What? No. No, of course not," Alasdair says; indignantly, as despite his dillydallying and hesitation, that thought had never once crossed his mind. "I just... just lost track of time. I'm sorry."

"You're forgiven." Francis grins briefly. "Though I'm afraid I'm going to have to abandon most of my plans for tonight now."

"Aye? And what were you planning on, exactly?"

"Oh, don't look so suspicious, _mon coeur_," Francis says, laughing a little at the sceptical expression that Alasdair supposes must be gracing his face even though he'd been unaware of it. "I'd simply hoped we'd have chance to share some drinks and conversation to ease our way into things first."

His voice hitches slightly, and Alasdair looks again to the brandy, and thence to anxious twist that Francis' lips have settled into. "Ease _our_ way," he echoes incredulously. He can hardly credit it, but there seems to be no way to explain this behaviour other than: "You're nervous, too?"

"I haven't been nervous about undressing in front of another person since I was fifteen," Francis says quickly. After a short pause, however, he adds, "Though I am tonight."

"Really? You didn't seem to have any issues about throwing off your clothes at every opportunity when I was your guard."

"I most certainly did not! Besides, you never looked then."

"I might not now, either," Alasdair has to admit.

"Right." Francis slams his letter down on the desk, and then throws back the remainder of his brandy in a single swallow. "Of course. I shouldn't have... Shall we get this over and done with?"

He launches himself up from his chair so violently that it almost overturns in his wake, stomps across the room to the side of his bed, and then plucks at the buttons of his shirt with such hurried, agitated pecks of his fingers that it's a wonder that they don't tear clear away from the fabric.

It's clear that either his ego's been bruised or his feelings hurt, but Alasdair's not sure what else he could have said or done to prevent it. Before they even began courting, he'd promised Francis that he'd always tell the truth regarding such things, and it seems far too late to start dressing them up in pretty lies by this point in the game.

He sighs. "Do you _want_ me to look, Francis?"

"Yes!" Francis barks, but then the movement of his hands slows, and he too lets out a sigh. "No, not if you don't wish to. As always, you should do as you like."

What Alasdair would really like is to go back to his own room and sleep alone, but he's been complaisant about this for too long, he'd only be delaying the inevitable, in any case. He'd just have to face this tomorrow, or the next day, or even the next week, if he was lucky enough that Francis' patience didn't run out entirely by then.

"Okay," he says, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning his weight back against the edge of Francis' desk. "I'm looking. Carry on."

Francis glances across the room at him, his brow furrowing. "For heaven's sake," he says. "You remind me of my old sword master, Signor Ricci. He used to glower at me just like that when he was about to test me on my drills."

"And now I'm not looking at you in the _right_ way?" Alasdair rolls his eyes. "How would His Highness prefer I do it?"

"I just..." Francis chuckles quietly, and starts unbuttoning his shirt again. "Never mind."

Several years ago, Angus and Alasdair's investigations into the whereabouts a cask of stolen ale had lead them to a seedy tavern on an even seedier street near the Old Town docks, which boasted what the proprietor termed 'exotic dancers' alongside the more typical fare of such establishments. The dancers had all been hollow-cheeked men and women with ashen complexions, and their expressions had been completely vacant as they gyrated listlessly for the dubious pleasure of the scattered patrons, discarding their few, scanty items of clothing onto the grubby floor as they wended their way around the tables.

Alasdair had found the entire experience depressing, and its possible attractions completely eluded him.

Francis doesn't shimmy his body like those poor sods did, though, nor does he sway his hips. He simply undresses like a tired man at the end of a long day; slowly, and with the methodicalness of routine.

Even back when they were playing at being guard and master, Alasdair had admired Francis' upper body; the broad line of his shoulders, the flat plane of his belly, and corded muscles of his arms. He admired its obvious strength despite the deceptive slenderness of his frame, even though he did not, and does not, feel particularly compelled to touch it. Except perhaps – he amends, when Francis twists slightly and his back catches the light – to place a hand against his scarred skin, if only to reassure him that it isn't as repellent as he fears it to be.

When Francis begins to push down his long, silk drawers, Alasdair's nerves finally give out, and he averts his eyes until he hears the telltale creak and groan of springs that signal that Francis has climbed into bed.

"There," Francis says, smiling softly as their gazes meet. "That wasn't too onerous, was it?"

"Naw, but I'm guessing the next part might be."

Francis' eyes soften, as well. "I had one of your nightshirts brought up earlier. It's in the dressing room if you—"

"No," Alasdair says firmly. He's been brave enough to get this far, he might as well see how far he can push himself now before he drains his stores of courage entirely. "No, I'm fine here."

Notwithstanding the constant, inescapable knowledge that Francis is closely following his every move, Alasdair finds he can shuck his shirt and step out of his trousers with relative ease. Francis has watched him spar with the palace guards often enough to catch him bare-chested a time or two, and his drawers are so long and commodious that they cover almost as much of his legs as the trousers.

The drawers themselves, however, cause him much more consternation. It would be a greater show of trust than he has ever shown Francis before, he thinks, if he were to drop them too, but the memories of the few times he has found himself with company in the guardhouse shower room despite his best efforts gives him pause.

Such occasions always led to ribbing and crude jokes that circulated with unabashed glee around the guardhouse for days afterwards. He's fairly sure that Francis would be too polite to laugh or poke fun in the same way as his old colleagues did, but he can't be _certain_ he won't.

He can't bring himself to do it. He drops his hands from his waistband.

"I'm going to keep them on," he says, at the same time Francis says, "You don't have to take them off if you don't want to."

Francis' answering laughter sounds as self-conscious as Alasdair's own. He pats the bed beside him, and asks, somewhat diffidently, "Join me?"

Alasdair nods, and clambers into the huge bed before his better judgement has chance to catch up with the rest of his body. Francis doesn't even look at him before leaning over to snuff out the lamp at his side.

Alasdair follows his suit, and after the room plunges into deeper darkness, endeavours to find a comfortable spot on the overly-yielding mattress. He has no clue how Francis manages to sleep on the damn thing night after night; it feels like he's lying on something as insubstantial and flimsy as a cloud.

"I have it on good authority that I kick a lot in my sleep," he says as he attempts to flatten down the voluminous pillows into something approaching firmness, "Punch occasionally, too."

"Thank you for the warning," Francis says. He sounds half-asleep already. "And I suppose I owe you one of my own. I tend to steal all the covers."

"Aye, I remember." Alasdair chuckles. "Many's the time when I was working for you that I'd come in here of a morning and find that you'd wrapped your quilt around you so tightly that you looked like a sausage roll."

"You have such a lovely way with words." Francis snorts. "Maman used to say I looked like a little caterpillar trying to spin itself a cocoon."

As Francis' erstwhile pet name is a secret apparently too dreadful to share even after all this time, Alasdair's interest piques once more at the anecdote. "_Mon papillon_?" he ventures.

"Good guess," Francis says through a yawn, "but, no; not even close this time, _mon cher_."

"_Mon chenille_?" Alasdair suggests, but his only reply is Francis' breathing; slowing, deepening, and roughening almost to a snore on the exhale.

He closes his eyes, and tries to match his own to it, but as the near silence makes him unnaturally aware of every last rustle of fabric stirred by Francis' slight movements, and the small warmth of his distant body besides, he suspects his own sleep will be very slow in coming to him.  
-

* * *

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Francis wakes with a heart lurching start, flung shaken and unprepared into the inky darkness of deep night. He can hear wood creaking, the ground below him is heaving and surging like the deck of a storm-tossed ship, and for a disorientating moment, he thinks he must still be trapped on that leaky old tub, bearing him across the Britannicus Oceanus to begin his life's exile.

As his mind slowly disentangles itself from the last clinging tendrils of sleep, however, he realises that it is his bed frame that's creaking, the vast acreage of his mattress that's undulating as his companion on it alternately bends and flexes his legs as though he's trying to run whilst supine.

Well, he can't say he wasn't warned.

Though he had maybe not given that warning its due consideration. Felice had slept uneasily on occasion, too, and Francis had not found it especially disturbing.

But Felice merely twitched a little and gave the odd, quiet whimper; he did not thrash his head against pillows, drum his heels, or twist his body around to aim surprisingly hefty punches across the width of the bed.

The second of these almost connects with Francis' side, and he hurriedly rolls away to the safety of the edge of the mattress, well out of striking range of even Aly's long arms, then lights the oil lamp sitting on his bedside drawers.

The abrupt flare of light causes Aly's eyebrows to scrunch down low above his nose, but seemingly fails to rouse him to any great degree otherwise. He barks out something that sounds like a curse – though not in any language Francis understands – turns his head aside, and then resumes his battle against his unseen enemy once more.

When one of his flailing hands misses the headboard of the bed by mere inches, Francis decides it prudent to try and waking him before he has chance to hit something less yielding than his own flesh and break his knuckles.

He calls Aly's name several times to no avail, and then, in desperation and the hope that Aly will forgive him the liberty given the circumstances, reaches out with the intention of shaking Aly's shoulder.

Aly's arm shoots out like the arrow that the taut, bowstring arcing of his body promised, and he catches hold of Francis' wrist before he can make contact with his skin. His grip is tight, fingers digging so deeply into the fine bones and tendons beneath the heel of Francis' palm, that, despite setting his jaw and grinding his teeth down together, Francis can't quite hold back his startled and instinctive yelp of pain.

Aly's eyes fly open in an instant. They quickly flit from Francis face to his arm, and then he groans.

"Shit," he says groggily, his grip slackening. "I didn't hurt you, did I?"

"A little," Francis admits, "but it's no matter. I'm just glad you're awake. I thought you were going to shake the bed apart."

"I did tell you that I kick, right?"

"You did, but that wasn't mere _kicking_. I've seen dancers performing the galop with less verve."

Aly chuckles; a low, rusty sound like the creak of a badly oiled door hinge. "I probably should have been a bit more explicit."

"How on earth did you manage to share your bed with your brothers for so many years and not do them an injury?"

"Well, I did break Arthur's nose once when we were weans. It never healed right; he's still got a little bump on the bridge." He sweeps his thumb in a soft, soothing circle against the underside of Francis' wrist before dropping it entirely. "Anyway, it doesn't happen every night, you ken. Just when I'm... unsettled. Then I tend to get bad dreams."

There's a fine sheen of perspiration coating his forehead, a slight tremor to his breathing, which seem to suggest something more insidious than the more prosaic of night terrors, such as failing dentition and tests unstudied for.

"What sort of bad dreams?" Francis asks.

"I..." Aly squints up at him, frowning. "It's weird talking like this with you hovering over me. Would you mind lying back down again?"

"Of course," Francis says, affecting a placid, compliant smile. He had deliberately kept as much distance as he could when they bedded down for the night, but such a remove is hardly conducive to intimate conversation.

He settles himself on his side, as near to Aly as he dares, but it's still far too close for his comfort. Counterintuitively, Aly seems to throw out more heat near-naked than he ever does fully clothed, warming the air between them like the furnace he had once told Francis his body resembled. He smells faintly of clean sweat, and even more faintly of lavender, just as he had the morning following their vigil on the hillside where he'd first made that claim.

The vigil on the hillside when Francis had finally admitted to himself – and shortly thereafter to Aly – that if the stars and their lives and the fates had aligned differently, then he would have been in very real danger of losing his heart to the man.

He wants to kiss him just as much as he did that night, if not more so, but where rectitude and decorum restrained him then, a deeper understanding of Aly's concerns and preferences holds him back now. Whilst he may endure a brief press of lips in greeting when they meet for breakfast, and another before they part for their separate chambers at the end of the day, he would doubtless be horrified if Francis even attempted as much here, now, and with his drawers all the way over on the other side of the room.

So Francis clasps his hands together, lies silent and still, and keeps on smiling that same artificial smile until Aly finally turns onto his own side to face him.

"I dream about things like the night I got stabbed," he says, his eyes fixed on the point of Francis' chin. "Or the morning after my ma got taken from us. Or when my Da was sick, and there was nothing the healer, or Ma, or I could do to help him." He lifts the shoulder that isn't pressed down against the mattress in a shrug. "You know, things I couldn't fucking change even if I found a way to go back in time and live through them again."

His cheeks colour a little, as though embarrassed by this admission. As though the betrayal of his subconscious mind, dragging him through these dreadful memories, somehow shamed him. Francis supposes they might well do; for a man who prides himself on his courage and his willingness to take action, being forced into to the role of a helpless witness yet again must be excruciating torture.

It compels Francis to make an admission of his own, if only to reassure Aly that he does not suffer through such things alone.

"I have similar dreams," he says.

Aly's eyebrows twitch upwards in interest. "Aye?"

"Well, it's only one dream, really, but it has sufficient variations on the same theme that it seems like many more."

Aly's expression is thoughtful, expectant, and Francis can't bear to look at it. He screws his eyes closed, but even in the renewed darkness, it's a struggle to speak.

"Are they about your father?" Aly prompts gently, when all Francis can manage is a few fractured and meaningless syllables.

Francis nods curtly. The confession that he still allows the bastard possession of so many of his thoughts is as humiliating as Aly's remembered impotence clearly is to him. "After a fashion. It's mostly just the crack of a whip, and his voice counting the strokes, sounding as bored as if were reading one of his subject's tax returns." Francis lowers his own voice, aping his father's dull, leaden tones. "'One, two, three'; all the way through to twenty."

"Twenty? I thought you were sentenced to a hundred lashes?"

"I was, but it might have killed me to take a hundred at once, and he didn't want that. No, I got twenty at a time, and then a week to recover between. He was never more of a father to me than he was then; even sat up with me at night and spooned broth into my mouth when I was too weak to do so myself. I think he was proud of me, because I never screamed. I wasn't being brave, though, I just didn't want to give him the satisfaction of knowing he hurt me.

"In any case, whatever he was feeling, he still dragged me – carried me, by the end – down to that dark little room with the blood-stained floor, and gave me over to the lash. 'It's for your own good, Francis,' like I was nothing more than a wilful child about to get a tap on the bottom for—"

Francis' throat finally tightens to the point where he cannot eke out any more words. Can barely even eke out a breath.

Aly's own breathing sounds rough, ragged, and his voice cracks when he eventually says, "Oh, fuck."

Francis hears the bedsprings creak, and his immediate thought is that Aly is rising to fetch a glass of water or brandy; one of the practical little things he does to soothe Francis if his nerves become frayed.

But his heat draws closer instead of fading away. One of Aly's huge hands settles lightly against the back of Francis head and then – seemingly heedless of their respective states of undress – eases him inexorably forward until Francis' brow is pressed against Aly's collarbone.

The suddenness of their proximity dazes Francis to such an extent that he cannot even begin to take pleasure in it. He cannot think or speak or move, do anything than lie there, tense and inert, fearful that the slightest twitch of his muscles might shock Aly into the realisation that he's acted too hastily on a natural impulse that he might have ignored had he allowed himself even a moment to reflect, given their current circumstances.

"Francis, I'm..."

The air rushes out of Aly's lungs in a gusting sigh, and then, with the deliberate slowness of a carefully considered action, slides his hand from Francis' head to rest in an open-palmed splay against the centre of his back.

It's mostly scar tissue now, and Francis registers little more than a slight warmth and pressure, but he hasn't been touched there since his father's doctors and healers prodded and tutted over his then open wounds and pronounced the nerves there likely deadened, so it's more than he ever expected to feel. Surprise more than gratification loosens a groan from his lips. One he immediately regrets, suspecting Aly will misinterpret it and be driven away, but though he does flinch as if in alarm, he keeps his hand steady.

"I should have known better than to ask," Aly says. "I'm sorry, sweetheart."

The apology sweeps past Francis largely unacknowledged as his mind sticks fast on the unprecedented endearment. "Sweetheart?" he echoes wonderingly.

"My da used to call Ma that," Aly says after a moment's hesitation. "You don't like it?"

Francis isn't sure, either way. It sounded a little clumsy, but that could have been due to the small, flustered stumble Aly made in the midst of saying it. He certainly has no wish to risk curbing future attempts at such sentiments, however.

"You can call me whatever you like, _mon coeur_." The chuckle he hears building in Aly's chest prompts him to swiftly add, "Within reason."

"I know it's not as pretty as the words you use, but... I'll try to come up with something better. It'll have to wait till later, though. I'm too tired to think right now."

His voice has slowed to a low, languid drawl that somehow reminds Francis of the whisky they occasionally drink together, rich, deep, and honey-timbred, but despite his plea of exhaustion, and the audible evidence of it, he trails his fingers softly up the length of Francis' back, their tips unerringly finding the few remaining patches of clear skin between the scars. The sensation is an odd one, numbness giving way to sudden, sharp bursts of unexpected tingling heat, but far from unpleasant.

So much so, in fact, that Francis soon has to conscientiously angle his lower body away from Aly's to disguise his reaction to it.

When Aly's fingers reach the nape of Francis' neck, they pause, and then tangle themselves momentarily in a hank of Francis' hair.

"Soft," he murmurs, seemingly to himself, and then, a fraction louder, "'S like my Ma's was."

Two allusions in as many minutes; Francis might well start developing a complex. "Aly, do I remind you of your mother?" he asks jokingly.

"What?" Aly draws the word out into a yawn, almost completely eliding the t. "Naw, course not. 'Cept she had curly blond hair, too."

"Well, that's good to hear. They write plays about that sort of thing, you know."

Aly hums distractedly, clearly unenthusiastic about the topic, but Francis ploughs on, regardless. Aly will not, he thinks, want to hold him as he drifts off into sleep, so it seems to be in his best interests to keep him awake for as long as he can.

"None of them end well."

"Francis." A note of warning sours the warm tone of Aly's voice as he reiterates, "Too tired. Tease me in the mornin'."

"But, I—"

"Good night, Fran'. Goin' to sleep now."

Aly doesn't push Francis away, as he had anticipated, but actually pulls him a little closer, driving all thoughts of that hated nickname and further conversation from his head.

It would, perhaps, be sensible to withdraw to a safe distance again before Aly has chance to fall into a deep enough sleep to start dreaming once more, but Francis suspects he might have a moment or two of grace left.

He stays exactly where he is.


End file.
